The Big Reveal

Our correspondent checks in with the illusionist—whose ticket sales have topped those of Madonna and Lady Gaga combined—as his acclaimed MGM Grand show in Las Vegas celebrates its 10th year on the Strip.

GEORGE WAYNE:Back in the days of the fabulous “supermodel era,” did you make out with your ex-fiancée Claudia Schiffer in the back of a Manhattan yellow cab?

DAVID COPPERFIELD: I am sure I was caught on tape a few times. I am sure even back then they had cameras in the back of those cabs.

G.W.So, you’re still raking in the bucks with your spectacle, now celebrating its 10th year at the MGM Grand. You were obviously born a prodigy.

D.C. I have been doing magic since I was eight years old. I was 12 years old when I was first published in the Encyclopedia of Magic for stuff that I invented. At 16 years old I was teaching magic at N.Y.U.

G.W.How long does it take for you to master one of your singular illusions?

D.C. Each five-minute piece you now see in my show takes two years from idea to execution. That is why when someone else steals my creations it is very painful to deal with.

G.W.Does that happen often?

D.C. All the time. I have actually only ever won one case of legal protection for my illusions, and that was in Paris, where a guy stole my flying illusion.

G.W.And you have had a few medical-emergency scares on your sets.

D.C. The one incident I will never forget is when I cut the tip of my finger off. You have to understand that I am the person who went over Niagara Falls on a raft and survived. Here I am onstage in Atlantic City doing a rope trick with a pair of scissors, and I end up going to the hospital.

G.W.Talk to me about the 11 islands in the Bahamian archipelago that you own. Naomi Campbell’s been there, Oprah’s been there, and the Google guy Sergey Brin got married there.

D.C. Yeah, and so did Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

G.W.Not to mention the incredible four-story bachelor pad on 57th Street in Manhattan that you never use.

D.C. My new fiancée, Chloe Gosselin, is there all the time with our two-year-old daughter, Sky.